


The Scent Of You

by ExLibrisCraux



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: And He Ain't Telling, But Here's The Tag Regardless, Consensual Sex, Could Be Canon, F/M, Fantasizing, I Was Asked To Tag This As Incest, Only Alexander Jalexander Newall, Oral Sex, So I Guess We Get To Make It Up Ourselves, Tahancestor, it isn't, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23843020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExLibrisCraux/pseuds/ExLibrisCraux
Summary: "My kind do not create ourselves from nothing," the dragon said. "Heritage is always a blending. Always a melding of two sources, two beings together."Hamid wears his heritage well.He is not the only Tahan to do so.
Relationships: Apophis/OC, Saira al-Tahan & Apophis (Rusty Quill Gaming)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33
Collections: Rusty Quill Gaming Exchange 2020





	1. Before (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bittercape (bittercape)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittercape/gifts).



> The prompt from bittercape noted Sasha Racket as a 2nd in this story, but noted also that she was essentially included only to fulfill the 2-character requirement in the request notes, lol! So I have elected to include someone else instead.
> 
> I hope this serves its purpose, bittercape. I hope you love reading it as much as I loved writing it.

Freedom.

After decades- _centuries-_ trapped under the earth, chained in the dark: _freedom._

It was sweet to taste the broad sky again, to sweep vast wingbeats through downstroke and updraft. It was bliss to feel the warm yellow sun shining on scales gone pallid and dull from too long in a lightless prison. It was perfect joy to see the world spread itself out far below, after so long dreaming of it from underneath.

And it was _exquisite_ to draw fresh, unpolluted air into gargantuan lungs. To transmute it through biological alchemy into cleansing, vengeful fire. To unleash it; to raze armies and cities; to decimate an entire civilization for its unmitigated, _unforgivable_ hubris.

When everything was dead, every building rubble, the dragons left behind the vast wasteland of charred bone, splintered stone, and molten glass. They held council among themselves and decided mercifully and wisely that the smaller races- fragile, flightless, flawed and brief- were not ready, not yet, to govern themselves. The humans in particular, the wyrms agreed, must be... guided.

Rome could not be allowed to happen again.

So the dragons, in their wisdom, shouldered the responsibility of ruling the fractious, unruly world of smaller and less enlightened people. 

It was decided that they would disperse, each claiming a portion of the civilized world over which to hold dominion and the responsibility of guidance. To the last of them, smallest of the regal dragons, was given the distant mystery of a southern continent far to the west, and the broad and vibrant reach of Africa.

So Apophis swept south, the bright brass of his scales gleaming over the wine-dark sea.

His exploration of the continent was thorough and engaging. He spent time among the people he found, learning as much from them as he taught.

The orcs he liked very much. He found them to be compassionate and wise and commendably disciplined and to them Apophis gave his blessing for all but self-governance.

There were humans to be found, of course - there were humans everywhere - and these he watched closely for some time, searching for signs of the same dark seed of conquest that had poisoned those across the warm northern sea. Eventually, he gave over the task of observation to the orcs, with a caution to reach out to him should they notice its emergence.

His curiosity satisfied, Apophis turned again to the north. He had briefly examined, on his way deeper into Africa, a culture which had intrigued him immensely, and he had accordingly saved it for last in his grand tour. It was a people thriving along the banks of a powerful river that carved through the desert. They had cultivated a vibrant strip of green life bisecting the arid lifelessness, and something in that appealed to him.

So Apophis returned his attention to this place, and walked among her people. There were humans there too, of course, and a smattering of orcs, and goblins aplenty, but there also were _halflings_ , and in them the dragon took special delight.

The halflings were small, like him. They were clever and nimble, like him. They seemed curious about everything, as was he. Their skin in this place was a rich golden-brown, almost brassy, and it reminded the dragon of his own shining scales. He found the halflings at first interesting, then intriguing, then endearing. The dragons should not have a favorite race... but in the halflings, Apophis found his, regardless.

It did not take the dragon long at all to decide that it would be here among that tiny people that he would make his home. He chose the city he liked best as his royal seat, and commanded a suitable domicile to be built, at once lair and palace, house and temple, center of government and shrine to his majesty. Apophis himself poured draconic magic into the construction of the pyramid, reinforcing with raw power the sturdy, timeless stone, and when it was finished, he took up residence, thence to govern down the generations of his beloved people.

Thus it was that the dragon came to Cairo.


	2. Then (Chapter 1)

Seshat looked up from the granary records she was currently skimming for discrepancies. Apophis was watching her, the warm glow of his eyes banked while he observed her with eyes narrowed to merest slits.

Insofar as it was possible to read a dragon’s expression, he seemed... amused.

Seshat returned the stare for  _ just _ a second - not so long as to be disrespectful, but enough to deliver her point - and looked down again. She tapped the end of her stylus against the scroll draped over her knees (incredibly disrespectful to the papyrus, but she was feeling contrary today) and tried to refocus her attention on her work.

She could hear the sinuous susurration that signified Apophis moving over the colossal flagstones, and tried to tune it out. This was difficult for a number of reasons, not least of which was the increase in light and warmth that accompanied his approach. It was like being snuck up on by a sunrise.

Seshat shifted uncomfortably and adjusted how she sat, resettling the scroll across her legs. It was not the warmth of Apophis, truly, that was the distraction, but rather the disquieting (not entirely unpleasant) warmth in her belly that it engendered. She ignored it, as always. Seshat knew what it meant, and understood its innumerable impossibilities. She had catalogued them to herself countless times over sleepless nights spent trying to quell her own overactive imagination.

It was difficult, lying alone in her small bed. The temple garden, visible out her window, was lovely at night, with a profusion of night-blooming flowers breathing subtle perfume into the warm air. When it was moonlit, the view was breathtaking - the bright explosion of daytime blossoms were gone, folded into themselves to sleep, and the entire world seemed limned in silver that faded into dimensions of shadow and dark.

Seshat could see the garden’s broad wading pools and fountains from her window, and had more than once envisaged herself walking into one of the shallow pools, her linen kalasiris soaking up water, clinging to her calves, her thighs, her hips as she waded further and deeper.

In these self-indulgent visions, Apophis watched from some deep-shaded nearby glen of ferns and flowers and sheltering trees, visible by the smoldering orange gleam of his eyes. Seshat was, dreaming this, acutely aware of the Brass Pharoah’s focused attention, and deliberately ignored it... although her lazy dip into the cool water was as much a performance for her lord as it was a pleasure for herself.

She would, Seshat imagined, lie back in the water, letting her unbraided, unbound hair float in a tangled halo around her head. She would stare up at the cool face of the moon where he sailed serenely above, and her hands would be warm on her own skin when she encouraged the floating linen of her dress up to reveal her legs. Further up... 

Still aware of the dragon’s hungry eyes upon her, she would trace her own sensitive flesh; find the delicate parting and let her fingers explore...

A brief uncurling of hot air like a sun-baked desert breeze drifted past her, jerking Seshat abruptly out of her hazy reverie. It riffled the records she held and sent the scrolls on the floor next to her scurrying and rolling away. Before she could stop herself, Seshat jerked her head up to glare furiously at the dragon and snapped, “Do you  _ mind? _ ”

She realized a breath too late what she had done, and her lazy internal warmth was replaced by a sudden spike of grave-chill that gripped her spine.

Apophis was quite close. Seshat was faced by the immediacy of an enormous mouth, all scimitar-curved teeth and the faint glow of flame, and as she watched, it opened slightly, parting like a serpent’s to extend the tip of a mammoth, forked tongue. Seshat knew what  _ this _ meant too, had witnessed countless times the dragon’s habitual testing of the air before falling on his prey with speed and brief savagery. Apophis was not delicate with his meals.

“I- I apologize, lord,” Seshat stammered, scrambling to her knees. She bent forward, hugging her waist and doubled over less in respect and more from stark terror, and her hot tears stained the thirsty stone beneath her. Every second drummed on her straining nerves, dragging her deeper into a distraught spiral as she waited to feel those massive teeth close over her; as she waited for death. “I don’t, I, I, I- I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

Seshat heard the slide of scales over stone again and every muscle tensed nearly to snapping.  _ It comes, now it comes, now death now teeth now agony now nothing ever again- _ .

The slithering stopped, quite close now. Seshat did not look up; she knew from the sound of his approach that Apophis must be standing directly over her, her huddled form probably a tiny ball between his massive, taloned forelegs.

Another gust of hot air unfurled over her. Seshat could feel the violent snapping of her kalasiris around her body, felt the countless braids of her long hair tangling together. She felt something else, too: the weighty presence of something  _ huge _ directly overtop her.

She didn’t have to look. She knew what it was.

Apophis’ mouth was close enough that if Seshat lifted from her huddled crouch, she would probably hit her head on his enormous, vicious teeth.

“Hmmmm.”

The deep hum from directly above rolled over Seshat like an earthquake, and was immediately followed by a surprisingly delicate intake of breath. A thread of confusion spun through her dread-soaked mind.

“Seshat.”

She shivered as the dragon spoke her name, and she did not look up.

“...yes, lord.”

It was barely a whisper, and all the voice that Seshat could summon.

“Seshat. Look at me.”

It was a command, and disobedience was unthinkable. Seshat fearfully lifted her head, then pushed off the floor with trembling hands to sit back on her heels.

Apophis was indeed standing immediately before her, towering over her small form. She could see the darkly bronze talons at either side of her, his powerful forelegs a dual-pillared prison. After a moment to steel herself with what scraps of courage remained to her, Seshat did as Apophis bid her, and looked up.

The dragon was peering at her, his massive head lowered nearly to the floor. She could see the sweeping arch of his long neck curved up and back like the crest of a mountain.

“Do not move, Seshat.”

She held her breath, wide-eyed, unable to look away as the immense face closed on her. Was she to  _ watch _ as the dragon opened his mouth to devour her? Was she to bear witness to her own approaching death? Seshat’s insides roiled with sour adrenaline and stark, white-hot terror.

Apophis, with a finesse that astonished her, gently nudged Seshat in the abdomen with a serpentine muzzle multiple times as wide as she was tall. It was a brief pressure that knocked the wind out of her, but it was not... damaging. She felt the rush of hot air from the dragon’s nostrils, a breath that must have been, for him, the slightest and most delicate of exhalations but which threatened to blow Seshat over backwards.

After a moment, Apophis withdrew.

“Interesting.”

Seshat was reeling, her overwhelming terror saturated now with hope and more than a little confusion.

“Am-” She swallowed and tried again to force real sound out of her dry throat and mouth. “Am I- to die, my lord?”

A low chuckle rumbled its thunder through the cavernous hall.

“Die? For what sin, Seshat?”

Apophis turned, moved some distance from her to coil his enormous bulk on the broad flagstones, resting his chin on his crossed forelegs. He seemed once again amused.

“For what sin?” he repeated. “For being justifiably annoyed with me? I cannot be angry with you for being sensible.”

Seshat frowned. In apparently no danger of being devoured, and entirely unable to make sense of what had just occurred, she elected instead to busy herself gathering together the scrolls and papers that had been blown awry by the dragon’s playfulness.

_ Playfulness _ .

A quality she had never expected to apply to the humongous creature that served as her people's ruler and deity.

“Besides,” Apophis continued. Seshat felt his eyes on her, heavy and intent and-

-and  _ hungry _ .

A ghost-memory of her private dreaming trailed salacious fingertips down Seshat’s spine, and she shivered. She heard Apophis shift behind her.

“Besides. You smell... interesting, Seshat. I am curious, and forever yearn to learn more, and here is a mystery to solve. Taking your life would be the height of ingratitude.”

Seshat went perfectly, deadly still.

_ You smell... interesting _ .

He couldn’t- he didn’t mean- he-

Seshat half-turned to look at the dragon over her shoulder. He remained where he had lay down, still watching her closely.

“M-my lord,” she stammered. “I thank you. For my life.”

The radiant orange gleam dimmed as Apophis half-closed his eyes and drew in another dainty, experimental breath.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Interesting.”

The bassy rumble burrowed through Seshat’s skin and buried itself deep, deep inside her, shivering through her like the secretive warmth of her solitary and sleepless nights. Apophis’ nostrils flared.

“That,” he said. “That scent. I find it intriguing, Seshat.”

He knew, he  _ had _ to know what it meant, and Seshat blushed to the tips of her delicately pointed ears. The dragon’s laugh was quiet enough not to injure, but still a swift bark of amusement that made her take an unbalanced step backward.

“Do you think of me then, Seshat?” Apophis asked her. “When you have finished the day’s tasks, when you have balanced my accounts and dealt with the merchants and tallied the granaries and the quarries and paid the builders and miners and farmers supplying our needs; when you have calculated how much we shall spend and how much we shall bring in, when you have exhausted your mind with administering the worldly needs of my capital city for me... do you think of me, then?”

Seshat could only stare. Rooted to the floor by the dragon’s penetrating gaze, she could think of no words, nothing with which she could respond which would be in any sense respectful or sane.

Apophis did not seem to expect her response in any case, because he continued, “Your chamber is not a large one, Seshat, but it is yours alone. Do you think of me, there with no-one else to see you, no-one to hear your soft cries in the dark?”

Seshat choked.

_ He knew _ .

That single fact tumbled slowly, slowly through the suddenly-empty expanse of her mind.

_ He knew _ .

He was not angry. He was amused. He was...  _ interested _ .

This fact joined the first, melded with it, danced with it: frightening, tantalizing, impossible, potential.

“Tell me, Seshat.” This was a whisper, impossibly. It was not something she heard, precisely; rather, it was very nearly a physical presence that twined around Seshat like the brass serpents’ coils wrapped decoratively around her bicep. It bypassed her ears and breathed its words directly into her mind, and the words in turn tugged from the corners and hidden spaces all of her florid and furtive imaginings.

Seshat stared at Apophis.

Apophis stared back, inscrutable.

“Tell me what you imagine, when you think of me.”

He already knew. Seshat knew this down to her bones: Apophis already knew. But he had asked, and Seshat must answer.

“I think of... of the garden, lord,” she whispered. Seshat tried to cast down her eyes and found she could not look away from the mesmerizing orange of Apophis’ gaze. The words, once begun, spilled out of Seshat like a confession, like a prayer to the god that was in defiance of all reason immediately before her, drinking in her fantasy like the finest of wine.

“I think of the garden. At night, the daytime flowers are closed and sleeping, and the fragrance of night-lilies rises like incense.”

Seshat swallowed and continued, still transfixed by that alien, unblinking stare.

“I think of the garden. I think of- walking through it, on the paths that the moon makes clear for me. I think of the- the wading pools... there are birds sometimes that take flight when I approach, and the water... I think of the water. I think of it cool, surrounding me. I think of floating there..."

Seshat trailed off, and although she was still staring at Apophis she was seeing something else entirely, and dimly had a sense of the dragon  _ present _ with her, suffusing her mind, her dream, her detailed and desperate imaginings.

“Go to the garden, Seshat.” The whisper again, Apophis’ voice but soft and slithering within her rather than the rolling bass of his audible speech. “Tonight. Go to the garden, if that is what you wish to do. Walk the moonlit paths, wet your feet in the fountains, sink into the pools.”

There was a sense of soft, sibilant laughter entwined with the whisper.

“You have given years of your life to my service. You have served with dedication, with loyalty, with intelligence and discretion and skill. You have earned some peace among the tranquil night-lilies.”

Apophis lazily blinked, and Seshat found she could look away. She did so, bending to hurriedly resume gathering up documents. The dragon’s voice rose audibly behind her.

“Seshat, you may go. You have labored enough for one day, I think.”

She straightened, her heart in her chest. “Thank you, lord,” she whispered.

And Seshat fled.


	3. Then (Chapter 2)

How long, Seshat wondered, could an afternoon last?

It was growing late. Seshat sat in her room and stared out at the gardens that had been so prominent in her dreams.

The conversation with Apophis had played itself through her mind on an endless loop since she fled his presence, and Seshat had picked over every moment, every word, every sensation and assumption and implication, searching for hidden meaning or for any alternate interpretation. What if she had mistaken his interest? Appohis was not a halfling, not even a human; Apophis was a  _ dragon _ , an enormous, ancient thing with a mind so alien from hers as to be incomprehensible. Who was she to assign motive to a being like that?

_ Go to the garden _ .

Whatever his intention, Apophis’ directive had been clear enough.

_ Go to the garden _ .

He had promised nothing. He had  _ threatened _ nothing. The memory of his colossal mouth suspended over her shaking body remained an icy pinprick in Seshat’s belly, the menace of imminent death refusing to fade entirely away. But Apophis had affirmed he’d never had any intention of killing her, and she had no reason to doubt the truth of it. He had never, in all her dealings with him as his actuary, been anything but honest.

Seshat had assumed, and she had assumed incorrectly.

She should, Seshat decided, take what the dragon had said at face value, nothing more. Go to the garden, he had told her, and spend some time in peace. That was all.

It was good advice, if nothing else.

Still.

Seshat gazed out her window, watching the sunlight slowly deepen through honey-gold to rich amber and pink and vermilion at the horizon, and her belly burned with something that wasn’t entirely fear.

After an eternity, the sun finally relinquished its hold on the world and gave way to night. Seshat could hear quiet voices now and again in the hallway as other servants of the Brass Pharaoh made their way to their chambers. She waited through the first hours of the evening as time crawled past at a snail’s pace.

Dusk deepened into twilight, which bloomed into full darkness. Outside, the flora of night unfurled, and a sweet, soughing breeze carried their scent to where Seshat sat. There was no noise from the servants’ wing in which she and Apophis’ other administrators dwelled: all were asleep, or near enough.

Seshat was, for all intents and purposes, alone and unobserved.

There was a dreamlike quality to the garden when she stepped out into it. Perhaps it was her imagination dragging forward imagery from her fantasies to populate the reality.

It didn’t matter. Seshat trailed her fingers over the gently swaying fern fronds that lined the path as she walked, feeling the heat of the sun still warming the sand of the clear pathways. Every leaf, every petal, every visible edge held a line of cool moonlight.

The first of the fountains was nearby - Seshat could hear the spill of water over the lips of the stone bowls, and the splash of it into the large basin at the bottom. She strayed from the warm pathway, drifted her fingertips through the fountain as she passed.

Her favorite of the wading pools was not far. It was a bit deeper than the others, which were only about waist-height even on a halfling, but this one let her truly  _ float _ . Seshat had spent countless evenings when she was much younger lying back, buoyant, and staring up at the stars.

More recently, it had become the most frequent setting for her imagined trysts. Perhaps this fact lent the pool a little more gravity than the others. Walking toward it, Seshat was aware of a firm sense of inevitability.

The moon’s face gleamed unbroken on the water’s still surface when Seshat slipped through sheltering trees into the clear space that was her destination. Ripples rolled outward from her ankles when she stepped into the water; they shivered across the floating silver disc and dissolved it into endless tiny ribbons riding endless tiny waves.

Seshat waded deeper, performing the story she had scripted for herself over and over again, wrapped in yearning and loneliness.

There: the cool water swallowing her calves. Her linen skirt clung to her legs as the thirsty fabric wicked water upward.

Now: up to her thighs, and the ripples of her movement were beginning to travel back to her as they bounced gently against the far edge.

Yes: up to her waist, and the fabric of her kalasiris floated around her, pale in the moonlight and eerie with the shift and flow of water as she moved.

Seshat tipped her head back to stare up at the moon’s serene face. He told her nothing. She was not the first lovestruck girl he’d watched dreaming through the night. She would assuredly not be the last.

She kicked gently off the bottom and let her legs float up and out, let herself tilt effortlessly from standing to lying down, letting the water cradle her. Seshat closed her eyes. Every indrawn breath lifted her, each exhalation let her sink, and the water’s surface slipped up and down over her skin like the tide.

It  _ was _ peaceful. Perhaps she should have begun doing this years ago.

There was warmth, she realized, that she had not noticed before, and some unidentifiable emotion twisted her insides and exploded silently outward, pushing her pulse and her quickened breath ahead of it.

Seshat opened her eyes.

He was not strictly adhering to the narrative. This was, of course, his prerogative.

Apophis stood at the edge of the pool, watching her. Seshat recognized the warm amber glow of draconic eyes, light and warmth spilling forth with equal impossibility.

There the list of what Seshat recognized ended.

There were no wings arched black against the night sky or folded tightly along a muscular, serpentine body. No immense head loomed to occupy the complete breadth of her field of vision. Of huge talons there was no sign, nor massive legs, nor whip-agile and terrifyingly strong tail.

Apophis stood in his garden, at the edge of his deepest wading pool, watching one of his chief administrators drift as though half-drowned and dreaming, and he did not do this in his draconic majesty.

Seshat stared at Apophis’ dimly-illuminated silhouette, and could think of no words with which to greet him.

When he spoke, it was the tantalizing whisper through her thoughts, no sound to betray their presence.

“Forgive the liberty,” Apophis told her, and his amusement was a scintillating thread through his soundless voice. “You seemed amenable in your idle thoughts..."

Seshat pushed her feet down to the pool’s bottom, seeking the grounding stability of stone.

“My lord,” she whispered, still staring. “You are- there is nothing to forgive, my lord.”

Apophis said nothing further, only held out his hand toward her, palm up. Without questioning, Seshat waded to where he stood, feeling the drifting shroud of her skirt tangling gently around her legs as the water tugged it languidly this way and that. His skin was  _ hot _ , feverishly hot, when she reached out to take his hand, and he pulled her out of the water with a single easy, fluid movement.

Water drip-drip-dripped to puddle at her feet and run back into the pool in tiny rivulets. Standing this close to him, Seshat shivered, keenly aware of the cool night air and cooler water in contrast to Apophis’ presence. His warmth was not restricted to his hands, but was instead an all-over heat that radiated from him like a small sun.

This had always been the case - Seshat had grown accustomed to it, working alongside him in the cavernous audience hall, but removed from that context, distilled into an infinitely smaller body, it seemed somehow more intense, nearly scorching.

Apophis had chosen, Seshat realized with a shock, to assert his metamorphosis as a halfling.

He took a step back and turned a slow circle, his arms held out to the sides. The amusement in his soundless voice deepened. “Will this suit? It has been quite a long time since I took another form. I hope I have done it justice.”

He was tall for a halfling, but not egregiously so. The dim amber of his eyes shed enough illumination to highlight the curve and dip of muscle over a well-proportioned frame, and to reveal that while Apophis had paid very close attention to the shape of his new body, he hadn’t bothered to clothe it.

Seshat swallowed as he turned to face her again, and in the face of his tangible curiosity, she nodded.

“You- you did well with it, lord,” she managed to whisper.

A breeze skirled through the garden, ruffling leaves and blossoms and sending a shiver down Seshat’s back. Apophis leaned forward, drew in a breath, and gently exhaled, and the unfurling of warm air over her body made Seshat sigh.

“Turn,” Apophis whispered, and as she did so, he breathed over her again, and again, a nearly continuous, soft billow of dry heat that ruffled the loose hems of her kalasiris and dried her as it warmed.

When she faced him again, he was standing no closer, but something in his regard seemed to have intensified.

“So,” he said, the sibilance drifting through her thoughts. “You have walked in the garden, Seshat. You have looked on the moon and seen his shine on the green and growing things, and the reflection of his face on the water, and you have submerged yourself in the water on which he floated. You have seen the gleam of your pharoah’s eyes in the darkness.”

No longer cold, no longer wet, still Seshat shivered.

“But this is not, I think, where your dreams end,” he continued. Is it?”

Seshat could see on his dimly-lit face what she thought was the beginning of a smile.

“What do you want, Seshat? When you think of me, when you think of the garden, what is it that you yearn for in those dreams?”

She drew in a breath. The heat of his presence warmed her, and Seshat could smell the lingering aroma of incense and ink and the unique, metallic scent that belonged to Apophis alone.

“You face no judgement, Seshat.”

Another breath. In. Out. Seshat focused on this because to focus on him was perilous. The gravity of his presence already threatened to overwhelm her.

“You risk no retribution.”

In. Out. Seshat tried to keep her breathing slow and even, unable to quell the rapidly fluttering race of her pulse.

“What is it, Seshat,” Apophis whispered, “that you, in your secret heart, in your lonely bed... what is it that you  _ want? _ ”

Seshat closed her eyes. Her breath quieted, her racing heart seemed to pause.

Perhaps-

_ Face value. Apophis has never lied to you. The dragon does not lie. _

Perhaps-

_ He knew. He knows. He is  _ **_asking_ ** .

Perhaps.

Without opening her eyes, Seshat licked her dry lips.

“I want.  _ You _ , lord.”

There was no answer, as such - Apophis’ warmth remained, the heavy sense of his presence did not change; the tangible weight of his curiosity, his  _ interest _ were still present, perhaps intensifying. Seshat drew a deep breath and forged ahead.

“I want to- to taste you, lord; I want to know what... your skin feels like.”

This,  _ this _ part of Seshat’s drifting fancies had never been strictly defined but was always instead a nebulous underpinning of half-physical longing. But Apophis stood in front of her now in a form familiar to her, one she could envisage in every particular, and the specifics of her yearning now came pouring into her imagination and across her tongue.

“I want to know what it is to kiss you. I want to know how your hands feel on me, lord, on every part of me; I want to feel your weight above me and between my legs.”

Seshat couldn’t stop now if she tried. She opened her eyes and stared up into Apophis’ half-hidden face and prayed that the upswell of scalding  _ want _ was evident in her voice or in her gaze or in her mind.

“How hot is your tongue, lord?” Seshat swallowed. “How deft are your hands? How firm would you be if I took you into my mouth, or into my body?”

Apophis did not move closer, but Seshat could  _ feel _ the sharpening of his attention on her.

“We do not love,” he whispered to her. “Not as the smaller races do. We are too vast; to distill any part of our sentiment to the individual would be unendurable. You do not wish me to love you, Seshat. It would destroy you utterly.”

_ He has never lied to you; the dragon does not lie _ .

And in truth... Seshat felt more relief than dismay. To lay claim to the love of a god was unthinkable.

“I do not require your love,” she replied. “Only your respect, lord.”

Apophis reached between them and tucked a curved finger beneath her chin to lift her face into the moonlight and the diffuse glow of his gaze.

“My respect,” he answered softly, “and my favor, Seshat, are already yours to claim. Were that not the case, we would not be standing here, you and I.”

The dragon’s praise sent a hazy shock of pleasure rioting through Seshat’s system. She took a cautious, experimental step forward and further into the corona of Apophis’ warmth. What she could not express in words was contained in that simple movement: acquiescence.  _ Yes. I want. _ And Apophis understood her meaning.

“Let us learn one another, then,” the dragon whispered, and cupped her face with his scorching hands.


	4. Then (Chapter 3)

Seshat had wanted, she’d told the dragon, to know what he tasted of, and what Apophis tasted of in this first starving kiss was smoke and honey and the same metallic note that carried his scent.

This did not surprise her - somehow this seemed  _ right _ , inevitable.

“Tell me,” he murmured into her mind, and Seshat had a moment’s appreciation for how  _ useful  _ it must be, to speak and yet have one’s mouth free for other things. “What do I taste like, Seshat?”

She broke the kiss with a gasp and bowed her head, trembling, and Apophis’ lips pressed hot against her forehead. Breathless, Seshat told him, and recognized the low rumble in his chest as nothing so much as a  _ purr _ .

“There is more of me to taste,” he whispered. “How shall we explore this, Seshat? In what direction do your desires lie..."

The voice was... deeper somehow, not in tonality but in the sense of it in her mind, and Seshat softly gasped. Thoughts, impressions, half-hidden memories all simmered up from their forgotten grottoes and she knew, she  _ knew _ that this was Apophis, gently but implacably searching out the precise answer to his question.

_ In what direction do your desires lie- _

“Aaah,” he purred. “I see. That, Seshat, I can indulge.”

She felt Apophis’ lips leave her forehead. The heat of his hands cupped her chin, and he claimed her mouth in another lingering, hungry kiss.

“Now,” he told her. “Pay homage to your lord, Seshat. On your knees.”

The command arrowed past Seshat’s suddenly-buzzing brain and buried itself in her heat-hazy core, and she found herself kneeling in front of her pharoah almost before she’d registered the words.

Apophis’ silhouette against the moonlit sky, when Seshat looked up, stole her breath. Even without proper light, she was struck by the beauty of the form he had chosen.

_ Chosen for her _ . The thought trailed lazy fingers over her awareness, and Seshat let go a long breath. He had done this  _ for her _ .

He was so close to her, standing with his feet apart, and Seshat leaned her face into his hand when he bent to touch feverish fingertips to her brow, her closed eyelids, her cheek, her parted mouth.

“Taste me, Seshat.” The low rumble was audible, a thrum through the garden air, and Seshat knew a swift spear of trepidation; surely someone would hear, would come and find them -

And what of it? Apophis’ will was supreme and sacrosanct. Let them see. No-one would dare to judge.

The deep, purring voice rose again. “Taste me, Seshat, as you said you wished to do. Take me into your mouth. Let me feel your lips and your tongue and your hunger.”

And again the quiet command sank deep, ignoring rational thought for raw desire: to taste, yes, and to please.

Seshat leaned forward and rested her cheek against Apophis’ thigh. She could smell him here, too, the same smoke and honey and brass. His cock stirred when she curved her hand over it, stirred again when her other hand rose to cradle the heavy scrotum beneath. Above her, Seshat heard a lazy exhalation, and she smiled.

She let her hands fall away to rest idle on her knees and leaned forward.

First: a kiss to the very tip, just emerging from its protective sheath. Seshat flicked her tongue between her lips to taste him; there was no salty-sweet droplet there yet to taste. His skin was hot and left a lingering hint of something spicy at the tip of her tongue.

Next: her tongue again, a stronger, lingering lick to dampen the entirety of his cock’s swelling head that drew another soft breath from above. Seshat pressed another kiss to the tip, and this time was rewarded with a taste, tangy and scalding.

Now: her lips parted around him and Seshat eased forward, taking her time to unhurriedly take his cock into her mouth. Apophis was not fully hard yet, and Seshat could feel the soft flesh lengthening, growing thicker and firmer as she leaned fully forward until her nose pressed against him. 

Apophis was pleasantly endowed. Seshat measured him with her hand as she drew back, curving her fingers around his shaft and lightly stroking as she leaned back, releasing his cock fully into the cool night air. Large enough to satisfy, but by no means intimidating. He had given some thought to every aspect of this form, it was clear, and Seshat felt a warmth of appreciation briefly suffuse the overall heat of rising lust.

“More, Seshat,” Apophis whispered, and his hand fell to the top of her head, fingers tangling in her slender braids. He pushed his hips forward, gently but unmistakable in his meaning, and Seshat obeyed.

She opened her mouth for him, and Apophis eased her toward him with his hand on her head, leaving his hips angled forward. He buried himself in her mouth again, and Seshat, suppressing the instinct to push away, swallowed around the swollen head she could feel at the back of her throat. She was rewarded with a soft gasp, and smiled.

Apophis drew his hips back. His other hand fell to her head and he held her in place as he rocked forward again. Back once more; forward again, a slow and easy rhythm that built on Seshat’s desire like kindling to a spark.

She curved her tongue underneath his cock and drew on him when he withdrew, and Apophis took in another soft, startled breath at the suction it created. His next thrust forward was a little less controlled, a little hungrier. Seshat trailed her fingers up his legs, feeling the firm shape of sturdy muscle in his calves, in his tense thighs. She curved her hands over the back of his thighs, holding him close to her in the same way as Apophis held her close to him.

Another thrust; another and another and another, her lord’s fingers tangled tightly in her hair, her lord’s cock filling her mouth and her lord’s mind an alien but delicate touch now and then against her own as he observed fleeting moments, here and there, of Seshat’s perspective. She could feel the bright thread of his insatiable curiosity flicking like a serpentine tongue through her thoughts.

Seshat memorized the taste of him: heat and metal and some bitter spice she could not identify. Her hum of pleasure made Apophis groan and push hard into her mouth, one more thrust at the edge of his control, and then he withdrew completely. His cock slid satisfyingly slick past Seshat’s lips, but he left his hands in her hair, no longer gripping tightly but gently stroking.

“It is intriguing,” Apophis whispered, his soundless voice wending languidly through Seshat’s thoughts. “Physical sensation in this body shape... It is more immediate. Difficult to ignore. The way blood flows, the way breath comes and goes. Movements and reactions are tied so intrinsically to sensation that they occur without deliberate intent.”

As he spoke, Apophis sank to his knees before Seshat, bringing himself on a level with her to peer intently into her eyes. This close to his face, his gaze was a literally, tangibly heated thing, and Seshat let out a soft breath through parted lips.

“Is it the same for you, Seshat?” Apophis leaned forward so that his lips brushed hers as he whispered. “Does the blood rush through your veins in this same way? Does your body move without your direction, doing as it will whether you will it or no?” 

Seshat stared at him, unable to articulate the answers he sought. She was certain he knew them already, whether through experience or surmise or merely sifting them from the surface of her thoughts.

Apophis’ fingertips trailed along her face as he slid his hands out of her hair. He smoothed his searing palms over her shoulders and down her bare arms until he reached her hands, and there he entwined her fingers with his.

“I would like to explore this,” Apophis told her. He sank to sit back on his heels. “I would like to witness what your body does when stimulated. I would like to feel how quickly your heart pounds, and into what pattern your breath falls.”

He released one of her hands and leaned back and back and  _ back _ over his heels, his spine flexing in a way that it should not, until his shoulders touched the grass. The sinuous movement continued from there, rippling down over his chest, his abdomen, his hips and legs, a single serpentine shrug that ended with Apophis lying on his back, staring half-lidded up at Seshat where she knelt beside him.

It was unsettling.

It was... intensely erotic.

“Come here, Seshat,” Apophis whispered, and once again, Seshat obeyed.

He guided her to straddle him above his hips; his hands rose to curve over her waist, his thumbs caressing her though the fabric of her kalasiris.

“I will gift you another,” Apophis told her with a hint of smug humor. Seshat had barely enough time to form a question before slender, sharp,  _ impossible  _ talons sliced through the linen garment from her chest to her navel in a single graceful sweep of his hand. He tore the rest. There was no sign of the talons in evidence when his hands again fell to her waist, the heat of his touch no longer filtered by fabric but directly warming Seshat’s skin. The shredded remains of her clothing puddled on the ground beside them.

His hands traveled downward from her waist, Apophis’ palms molding themselves to the generous curve of Seshat’s hips. He tugged her forward, urging her to slide up over his abdomen; settled her astride his chest, and he watched her face as he did so. The heat of his skin between her thighs was tantalizing. Seshat knew it reflected in her expression, knew that he could read everything he wished to know from it even without dipping into her thoughts to sense her arousal there.

Apophis leaned up and breathed deeply. His hum of satisfaction rumbled his chest beneath her, and Seshat gasped, and this seemed to delight him, because he hummed again, letting the sound build deep in his chest, prolonging it, stretching the sound and Seshat’s breathy moan at once.

“That appears to please you,” Apophis whispered, and Seshat nodded. “What else will please you?”

He was already looking, already sifting lightly as a breath through flashes of imagined trysts for those moments Seshat had most often returned to, most intensely yearned for, and the unfathomable intimacy of it made Seshat’s pulse spike.

Apophis let his head fall back to the ground, and his hands urged her forward again. “You imagine me tasting you,” he purred, speaking aloud the truth of what was in Seshat’s head. “So often, this is where you linger.”

Seshat was positioned now only nominally on Apophis’ chest; his chin nestled between her thighs and was a breathtaking frisson of friction as he spoke. She wet her parted lips, and Apophis smiled, and she felt that, too.

“Your tongue was a blessing on my flesh, Seshat,” he whispered. “I will return the favor.”

Apophis slid her forward the last crucial inch or two and Seshat forgot, for a moment, how to breathe. There was no teasing preamble, no light flick of the tongue to gradually build her pleasure layer on layer.

Seshat didn’t need it, in any case. She had in truth been existing since that afternoon in a state of hazy wanting, and by now was more than ready for any advance he chose to make.

The dragon’s tongue when in his draconic state was a slender, long, forked thing like a serpent’s: incredibly agile; incredibly sensitive. It was in fact frequent exposure to Apophis’ use of it - scenting the air at an administrator or petitioner’s approach, or frequent and meticulous grooming, or the slight flick of it between his teeth when he was amused by something - that had first inspired Seshat’s secretive fantasising.

Apophis had, in adjusting his form to better suit her, elected to retain those qualities, and as Seshat eased forward, he with little fanfare plunged his tongue deep deep  _ deep _ into her slickened sex and  _ hummed _ , another bone-deep roll of intensely localized thunder that made her whimper.

Her hands flew to brace on the grass at either side of his head as Seshat desperately sought something solid to ground herself because the world was falling away beneath her. Apophis was  _ relentless _ , greedily tasting all of her he could reach - his first sinuous intrusion translated seamlessly to sweeping his twinned tongue-tips over Seshat’s clitoris in an echo of the ripples that had chased her into the water a minor eternity ago.

It was an  _ exquisite  _ torment. Seshat didn’t bother to try being quiet. Apophis took evident delight in her reactions; each of her breathy cries brought from him another soft rumble of approval that elicited from her another moan or gasp or desperate roll of her hips against his unrelentingly curious mouth.

He slid his hands behind her and lifted Seshat to her knees. As she shifted to straddle his face, he buried his tongue inside her again and this time remained, withdrawing only a fraction to plunge deep again. Seshat, half-delirious, nearly overwhelmed, sobbed while he fucked her with his mouth; while Apophis with the single-mindedness and patience of millennia dismantled her decorum with devastating skill.

Seshat screamed when she came, abruptly and with a violent intensity that shook her like a jackal with a rat. For a few transcendent moments, the entirety of the world narrowed, condensed itself to the single point, the single second, the single sensation of the dragon’s serpentine, undulant tongue claiming her ecstasy for the deity, the king, the  _ man _ beneath her.

Apophis’ hands were moving up her back, Seshat was dimly aware; were supporting her shoulders as he slid himself backwards, out from underneath her to sit up. She sat astride his thighs with his arms beneath hers, his hands splayed across her back while she tried to remember how to breathe, how to see, how to feel anything but the reverberating echoes of the incomparable pleasure he had just tugged from her body.

“You are as delicious as I believed you would be,” Apophis whispered in her ear (in her head?) while she trembled. “Breathe, Seshat. You must breathe. It still courses through you, that pleasure?” Coyly, he flicked his tongue against her ear, and purred when she gasped. “I can taste it still. It perfumes your skin, the air around you. The scent of  _ you _ . It is... singular. Incomparable.”

With another boneless, impossible twist of movement, Apophis stood and brought her with him, one arm behind her back still, the other beneath her knees. She could feel the roll of muscle beneath his impossibly warm skin as he shifted her weight closer to his chest; felt the minute dip and sway of each step as he walked.

“It is  _ maddening _ , Seshat. Do you think today marked the first time I noticed it?”

The brilliant moon had drifted closer to the horizon, but still shed its silver-white luminescence over the garden around them; it limned the angles of his face where the banked amber glow of his eyes did not already illuminate, it outlined the muscular breadth of his shoulders. Seshat stared up at his face above her and found that once again she could not make any reply.

She heard the soft splash of water and closed her eyes, faintly smiling.

“You love the pool,” Apophis murmured. “If I have learned nothing tonight - and I have learned  _ much _ , Seshat - I have taken that single fact to heart.”

Seshat could feel the water just beneath her now, cool against her oversensitive skin.

“I have spent month after month pondering the scent of you, Seshat.”

Apophis dipped lower into the water, letting it take her weight.

“I have observed you, and considered at length its variations, its ebbs and flows and patterns of change.”

The water rippled against her skin as Apophis moved. He dragged lazy, feverish fingertips over her breasts, down her ribs, over her abdomen as he stepped deliberately around her.

“I  _ know you _ , Seshat, intimately through the fragrance that belongs to you and to no-one else.”

He reached her feet and trailed the pads of his thumbs up over the delicate arch, making Seshat gasp and reflexively squirm. Apophis laughed and gently, so gently pushed her ankles apart. Inquisitive ripples drifted from his hips to lick sweetly at Seshat’s inner thighs as he stepped between her legs.

“I began learning you long before tonight, Seshat.” His whisper traveled up her body with his palms, equally warm, equally tantalising. His hands came to rest on her hips, and Apophis bent to press a burning kiss to her belly. He did not immediately straighten but lifted his head from there, staring up at her, and Seshat swallowed. He leveled upon her the full weight of a dragon’s greed in that one penetrating look.

“Do you wish to learn me in return?”

The question was soft as the brief sigh of breeze that riffled the grass around the pool and breathed through the night-lilies that floated nearby. Apophis continued, still pinning her with his intent orange gaze, still soft.

“I told you that I cannot love you. This is a true thing. We do not love, my kind; we covet. We treasure. We jealously hoard. I will not restrict or bind you, because that is not my way... Know however that I have tasted you now, all of you, and I will not be content with a single sip.”

Seshat’s hands, idly adrift on the water, brushed against his, and she curved her fingers around his wrists. Apophis leaned down to dip his wicked tongue briefly against her navel, and she sighed. He could taste that response, she knew, and something in that knowledge was just as heady as the actual physical touch.

“We do not love,” he whispered. “We  _ claim _ .”

Seshat closed her eyes. Around her, the night-lilies whispered, teased by the lilting breeze.

“I ask this once, Seshat.” The whisper was part of the wind, part of the scented blooms, part of her own thoughts, indistinguishable from any of these. “Only once. And your answer now will be sacrosanct.”

His searing fingertips glided from her hips up to her waist, the warmth of his skin and the cool of the water making Seshat shiver.

“If we do this now. If I take you to mate. You are  _ mine _ , Seshat. It will be a claiming.”

She opened her eyes. Above, the serene moon watched unaffected.

“Do you allow it?”

He stood snug between her thighs now, intimately close, and Seshat breathed slowly out, felt the water rise gently against her skin, an ever-present threat of swallowing her whole.

What would be the difference, really?

She smiled.

“Lord,” Seshat whispered, “I am already yours.”


	5. Now (Epilogue)

Apophis watched from the depths of his eyrie as his descendant and his companions turned and made their way out of the colossal audience hall. There would be consequences for this day’s actions, but... 

But the dragon could find no fault with his decision.

Saira would handle the particulars, he knew, and that thought stirred a lazy swirl of affection in his ancient heart.

Hamid was not the only al-Tahan to wear their heritage well.

Later, when it was done, when all the violence and outcry had been dealt with; when the fascinating human woman with suspicious eyes and knives like claws and a far too honest heart had been granted the blessing of Aphrodite; later, he summoned Saira into his cavernous chamber.

She came, of course, immediately.

"You wished to see me, lord?"

Apophis did not immediately answer. Enormous and silent, he considered the small woman standing before him. She was nervous but concealed it well behind her effortless competency and carefully-schooled expression.

She looked, Apophis thought, so like Seshat. He wondered not for the first time if truly the smaller races returned to the world after death, again and again experiencing life with its delights and disappointments, its maddening, intoxicating complexity; its crushing agonies and its exhilarating ecstasies.

He found himself hoping this was so.

"Saira," he said, and he kept his voice soft for the fragility of her ears. "You witnessed Hamid's revelation. You are privy to the secret of his ancestry."

Saira bowed her head in deference.

"I am, lord," she replied quietly.

Apophis could detect nothing in Saira's tone but neutrality - a fine quality in a senior administrator, but unhelpful at the present moment. He rippled into movement, drawing closer to where she demurely stood and settled into the cool flagstones. He crossed one massive foreleg over the other, lowered his head nearly to the floor, and examined her from a mere handful of meters away.

Saira looked up sharply, then swiftly away again.

"My lord?"

Still unimpeachably neutral. Apophis was impressed, if unsurprized. Saira was, he privately felt, the best of her generation.

"You are so like her," he murmured, the rumble still loud enough to cast echoes like answering thunder. That,  _ that _ got her attention; Saira looked up at him again and this time her serious face registered something started, something confused.

"-I'm sorry, lord-?"

Apophis stretched his serpentine neck to bring his muzzle nearly close enough to Saira to touch her. Echoes of an afternoon countless hundreds of years ago drifted through his ageless memory as Apophis gently, delicately inhaled.

"You smell of her too, Saira. Enough to bring her to mind often."

Saira's confusion visibly deepened. A thin line appeared between her brows, her mouth dipping into a tiny frown. She folded her hands before herself as though uncertain what else to do with them. Apophis was pleased to note no fear in her demeanor, even this close to his predatory mouth.

"I- I'm uncertain who you mean, lord," Saira answered, doubt coloring her voice.

"Do you not wonder, Saira, how Hamid's heritage came to be? My kind do not create ourselves from nothing." 

Apophis took in another dainty sniff, tasting now the mild chagrin that flitted through Saira's mind. Chagrin, and...

"Heritage is always a blending, Saira. Always a melding of two sources, two beings together."

He had not imagined it. There, a little stronger as he spoke, itself blending with the mélange of elements that comprized Saira's unique scent: something familiar, fondly remembered.

"Of course, lord," she said, and oh how pleased he was with her: nothing but professional, utterly composed in expression and voice, even as underneath her skin Saira's reaction grew...warmer.

"I told Hamid that he wears his heritage well," Apophis whispered, and noted the tiny start Saira gave at the nearly-silent speech. "He is not the only Tahan of this generation to do so."

He watched in secretive fascination as Saira colored just a bit. The darkening rose along her high cheeks suited her, as it had done her distant ancestor.

Apophis moved again, slithering to curl in a semicircle around Saira. She half-turned to watch him, cautious and off-balance but remaining admirably calm.

"I told her, sufficiently long ago that I stopped counting the years, that my kin and I do not love." Apophis rested his enormous jaw on the stone floor, positioned so that he could watch her with one gleaming orange eye. "That to distill the complete regard of one of the dragons to a single individual would be unendurable."

The scent of her altered minutely, faintly even to his senses. Something like fear, something like hope. So very much like Seshat.

"And yet, Saira, against my admonition and expectation, I find myself loving, after a fashion, one of your small, delightful, endlessly intriguing race. I loved her ferociously, and to my astonishment,  _ she did not break. _ "

The hope was gradually gaining ascendency. Apophis tested the air with a flick of his sensitive tongue and was amused to note a tiny flare of the warmth underpinning it all.

"And I say again," he whispered, "you are so like her. Saira, you could be my Seshat brought bodily down the long, long centuries and gently set before me again."

Saira's blush deepened, but she lifted her chin, met his gaze without fear.

"What does that mean then, lord?" she asked him, an abundance of caution suffusing her quiet voice. "What does that make me to you?"

Apophis smiled, a strange but recognizable expression for a draconic face.

"That is in your hands, Saira," he answered. "I can tell you only that Seshat was mine in every way that matters, and that you remind me so strongly of her that I nearly call you by her name more often than I should perhaps admit. But that is all. You, and you alone determine what course forward we will take."

Saira was silent, and Apophis took in notes of uncertainty with his next light inward breath; of indecision, a confusion of  _ yes  _ and  _ no  _ and  _ what if _ that straddled the line between.

"You face no judgement, Saira," the dragon told her, soft as a sigh, plucking his words from a conversation long left behind in antiquity. "Whatever your decision, you face no retribution."

Perhaps the gods did indeed grant their mortal children the gift of living again and again in the flawed and beautiful gem of the world. Perhaps.

Saira closed her eyes and let go a long exhalation. She drew in a breath, breathed it softly out, breathed in again, and opened her eyes to meet Apophis' transfixing gaze.

"Lord,” Saira whispered, and the dragon felt a sliver of recognition and anticipation slice through his ancient heart. What a marvel, he thought, that she could cause such a thing - still? Again? As well?

“Lord,” Saira whispered, “I am already yours.”


End file.
